SpritesMind.NetSega Megadrive/Genesis development2017-12-12T04:32:30http://gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/app.php/feed2017-12-12T04:32:302017-12-12T04:32:30http://gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2746&p=32738#p32738All work (code, art and music) look stellar so far. I'll be following this closely!

Here's a new video with the C ++ Grenadiers!This is a really vicious unit with a specific AI that will give a lot of trouble for the player ... And it also gave me difficulty because it targets the player regardless of his position as long as I player is in under the grenadier and not too close.

So I managed to model and realize all of my main C ++ units (with a new unit- C ++ sniper), there will be more for the final game.

Otherwise, the demo shows a real deluge of enemies of all kinds in a fairly small space of game .. I do that to test the engine!It remains fluid despite everything, but I begin to see the limits, must say that there is really a hell to manage in the scene!We will have to start optimizing even more certain routine !!

The arcade sensation is really present, the fun is immediate as the original game and the Tectoy demo will be HardCore!

This completes the final work of the demo.We must now debug the little worries encountered on MD / Tectoy consoles and optimize even more the engine, the most boring stuff ...

]]>2017-12-11T14:47:152017-12-11T14:47:15http://gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2746&p=32734#p32734We've been long time readers of the spritesmind forum but finally got around to posting something as we wanted to let you all know about our game "Xeno Crisis" which we've launched today on Kickstarter:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/16 ... sis-mega-d

It's a top-down arena shooter that takes inspiration from the likes of Smash TV, Contra, Mercs, Alien Syndrome, Zombies Ate My Neighbours, Chaos Engine, and Shock Troopers. We're working with legendary pixel artist Henk Nieborg, who produced the art for "The Misadventures Of Flink", and also the amazing chiptune musician known as "Savaged Regime", who some of you may have heard of.

Looking forward to sharing more progress on the project in the coming weeks and months.

I was afraid I'll get that answer. So basically, I have to craft manually each tile to yield the wanted results. I hoped that I don't need to do that, perhaps via the virtual bitmap? - i.e., render via alpha masking two different tiles and get the merged one.

So if my level is more complicated, and the 3 layers won't fit, I have to figure out smarter ways, right?

The reason I reached this issue, is that I'm working on an isometric game, so I can't use square tiles to draw the objects. At the beginning I hoped I could just draw the object images and be done, but it seems I need to merge some images in one

]]>2017-12-08T09:32:142017-12-08T09:32:14http://gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2745&p=32730#p32730What you can do is to extend the blank area, for instance you blank 16 lines at top and at bottom (giving you 32 extra lines for fast transfer), than way you can extend the classic 7 KB transfer per frame to 12/13 KB per frame. To do that you have to use the H interrupt of course (disabling VDP at line 208 and re-enabling at line 16), then your final vertical resolution become 192 instead of 224.

Wow I just made some test by putting off some tiles streaming and some effects and it seems using Line Scroll is really possible in majority of cases. Unfortunately I am already pushing hardware to limits.. I think I overloaded VDP operations and I didn't think Using Line Scroll would take much bandwith... Still 1kb of 7kb is really good, I just already had that full 7kb used. LolI can't confirm this but is it possible that Raster effect on C64 is much lighter on the processing than on the Genesis ? I think that was the same thing for both machine.

Is the DMA transfer is used to move graphics stuff or it's to speed up the scroll value list in case of a lot of lines to change ?

Now, is it possible to set Scroll mode to Plane, and also use the H-Interrupts on only about 30-40 Lines to speed up things ?This would be my last optimizing tricks if I hope to be able doing what I would like to achieve, or else I will have to cut some stuff down.

]]>2017-12-07T19:38:352017-12-07T19:38:35http://gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2745&p=32728#p32728But yeah you can't set different scrolling mode on plan, they both share the same scrolling mode.You can also use the h-interrupt to change horizontal scroll on specific line, but given the number of line you need to change i think it won't be faster...Normally updating scroll table should not slow down that much, maybe you're transferring too much data per frame.. updating both H scroll tables shouldn't take more than ~1KB on the 7 KB available by VBlank.

I'm experimenting with Scrollmodes and to my surprise I will not be able doing what I wanted.

I didn't know that we had to set the same Scrollmode for both Plan using VDP_setScrollingMode().

My game is a 2d Jump and Run. I though I could set Line Scroll for Plan B to create different Levels of Parallax.The thing is that I don't need to scroll per line for Plan A but it seems that it's locked for both Plan A and B and unfortunately it's too slow to call HorizontalScollLine() 2 times.

Ideally I would even prefer a way of scrolling little parts of the Plan in line mode. Line 0-20, Line 100-120. ..

I wanted to see if it was possible to switch the ScrollingMode within the same frame but unfortunately it's not.

I tried Scroll per Tile but to my deception it's even worse because this way I'm even limited to not being able to scroll Y because the Horizontal Tile scrolled Y position doesn't fit to the VDP Memory Plan Lines, it's positionned to the Screen Lines... like sprites. Don't know if you will understand because it's hard to explain

Before continuing my Project I really need to know if there's a way to counter this problem or else I'll have to forget about some nice effects I wanted to add.

Probably if my game would not be so heavy it wouldn't be a problem but I'm almost wondering if it's possible to achieve a 60fps game using these fonctions and some other stuff. Mine is already running at 30fps but using HorizontalScollLine() for both planes slows it down to constant 20. but keep in mind I'm already doing a lot of stuff... Adding the super scrolling was the last heavy code to add to my game before I can concentrate on creating levels. In not too long I should be able to release some screenshots or a small video.

So my question is: is there a way to optimize Per Line Scroll techniques to my needs without having to set and lock it for 2 differents planes ? and if possible, only use PerLine scroll for small sections of my screen.

In mathematics often you have an unique solution (or a group of) and an exact methodology to arrive to that conclusion.Frequently in life you don't have this situation, but you have to chose your own framework to reach to a misty success.

(...)

In most cases this is the clearly the wining solution but since making videogames is not an exact science, is not mathematics, perhaps you want to experiment with other answers. Your choice.

It was a veiled question in that text. Anyway I don't see in the rules that we are forced to speak only about MD, and I answered the(both) question(s). Yes: it's not a common answer, agree. But I'm not a robot with predefined paths.

If it fits or not, well... what to do next in an uncertain environment it's quite a philosophical question, is it not?

A and B are different planes, so writing one type of tile to A and another to B and having both show is just how dual-plane graphics work. Writing one tile to B, and then another tile to the same place in B is merely setting B to the second tile. There's no way that that could work as this is a single plane. If you want both tiles in one plane, you need tiles that have both tiles' content in a single tile.